Elizabeth

Schafer: Equality,
promotion, and
the loyal servant
theory - advice
from the front line
Ann Blair:
Delivering fairness
in promotion
Jonathan White: education
is not for proft
Ian Searle: Saving our
public libraries
Des Freedman: The assault
on our universities
Steve Cushion: The politics
of pensions
Patricia Hulme and
Dan Arthur: The back
ofce bites back
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your new format magazine
2
for members of the
University and College Union
Autumn 2011
Education, education,
education . . .
Ken Spours on why education
must not be a political football
Is there a future
for HEFCE?
Interview with funding chief
Sir Alan Langlands
Sally Hunt says attacks on
pensions make militants of us all
Nothing simple
about simple
criminality
Peter Squires on the summer riots
A forgotten
pioneer?
Barbara
Wootton
was a
woman
ahead of
her time
says
Ann Oakley
ALAMY
www.ucu.org.uk
ONLINE TWO PAGE 2
Peter Squires
Theres nothing
simple
about simple
criminality
Britains summer riots provided the occasion for
a truly bulimic outpouring of intolerant reaction
as politicians rushed back from their holidays to
satiate the medias incessant demand for tough,
no-nonsense, sound-bites to reassure middle
England that some kind of order was being
restored.
Sadly, weve seen it all before; the frst time as tragedy, the second time
as farce, as the saying goes, but what about the third and the fourth time?
By then we get just lazy rhetoric (John Majors understand a little less;
condemn a little more from 1993 springs to mind) and easy clichs to
please the gallery. The very people who, on other occasions, have decried
knee jerk reactions and demanded enquiries felt suffciently confdent
to write the riots off as simple criminality (as if there was such a thing),
a consequence of our feral youth and a sign of Broken Britain. On the
other hand, Camerons incoherence was thoroughly exposed: not so long
ago he was encouraging us to hug a hoodie, but the gloves came off at the
frst sign of trouble.
Policy incoherence and the recycling of half-baked ideas are very much
par for the course in law and order policy-making with the need to be seen
to be doing something anything about the riots apparently taking
precedence over informed policy development. We need to be vigilant
Peter Squires
is Professor of
Criminology and
Public Policy at
the University of
Brighton
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in ensuring that the riots are not used as a further pretext for another
round of uninformed policy-making. During 2008 I became involved in
developing evidence for Street Crime Commission set up by Channel 4
and chaired by Cherie Blair. One of the bizarre proposals that captured the
imagination of the Commission was a suggestion that knife carrying young
people be taken on a late-night tour of A & E departments to confront them
with the bloody consequences of carrying weapons. It is not hard to see
how this might backfre: it might just feed the fear that promotes weapon
carrying in the frst place. Every survey of youthful knife carrying Ive ever
seen reveals young people if only we can be bothered to ask them - saying
they carry weapons to protect themselves. In the event, the proposal was
watered down to a school-based project, modeled on various US initiatives
Growing against gangs and targeting schools in high risk areas.
The trouble with such initiatives is that they can have a number of counter-
productive consequences. They can foster stigma around these schools,
give kids ideas about violence or in many cases just scare them, which as
noted already, is especially counter-productive given that we know young
people mostly say they carry knives for protection. Such projects typically
ft into a broader gang enforcement paradigm involving an uneasy mixture
of heavy-handed police led enforcement and quite naive, often preachy
communication projects. By contrast was need to re-connect with the
evidence base on these issues and understand from young peoples point
of view why they get involved in gangs and violence and the pressures
upon them.
And that, in a nutshell, is the political problem of
responding to the riots for any social science that
seeks to be relevant to current problems.
The political and media agendas are fast-moving and daily, whereas
good social science takes years. Yet when politicians and editors ignore
the established evidence base, in favour of instant fxes, they cut away
the foundations upon which effective policy development might proceed
leaving the researchers playing catch up. Even the highly laudable efforts
of the LSE and Guardian, modeling their recently launched Reading
the Riots initiative on the 1967 riot research in Detroit, which saw social
scientists and journalists collaborate to produce evidence quickly to rebut
the right-wing calls for tougher law and order (to redress the problems
that police brutality had played no small part in causing), will take months.
By which time most of those arrested for their involvement in the riots will
have been dealt with by the criminal justice system and, judging by the
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excessive two-thirds remand rate, many are likely to be in prison, adding
further pressures to our already overcrowded and, in (Justice Secretary)
Ken Clarkes words, broken prison system. And by then the debate will
have moved on.
Of course Clarke is correct; he just doesnt go far enough. The broken
penal system and its tendency to amplify, entrench and recycle, the
delinquency of the most deprived social groups has been understood for
decades. This is but one of fve enduring lessons drawn from the evidence
base by youth justice researchers and summarized by Barry Goldson,
Professor of Criminology at the University of Liverpool, but routinely
ignored by criminal justice policy-makers. The penal juggernaut is broken,
but the driver is deaf and blind. For the record, the fve lessons are: Youth
offending is relatively normal; youth crime trends are relatively stable;
diversion and minimum necessary intervention are cheaper and more
effective; universal services, holistic approaches and de-criminalising
responses are the least damaging forms of intervention; custodial
sanctions comprise the least effective and most damaging forms of
intervention. Of course, the particular problem in the heat and apparent
urgency of Britains riot moment is that is will further assist in the side-
lining of the established evidence base because something has to be seen to
be done now.
Perhaps, not surprisingly nearly all the instant,
of-the-shelf, diagnoses provided by our usual
suspects for the riots proved to be rather wide of
the mark.
Even so, it was the politics of policing which had to be settled frst after
all the police are seldom slow to exploit an opportunity to press their own
case. The riots, senior policing commentators reminded us, were a sign
of what was to come if the anticipated cuts to policing budgets were to
have their impact upon the policing of the streets. Chaos would ensue,
it seemed, the moment the urban underclass realised that the police
lacked either the numbers or the will to keep a tough lid on things. The
implication that the robust tactics of a thin blue line were the only thing
keeping us from urban anarchy was rather unsettling, accordingly the
police were accused of having mishandled the early riot fashpoints.
Of course, as fashpoints go, a mishandled, race-involved, police shooting
is right up there (and not only did the IPCC get it wrong in its initial media
release by talking of a non-existent exchange of shots, its involvement
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also appeared to suggest to the community that the police were not taking
responsibility for the incident itself); after all police shootings are the
most frequent immediate cause of race/community riots in the USA. On
the other hand, a deeper look would confrm that it is seldom just a matter
of the fashpoints themselves, we should also pay attention to the deeply
combustible tensions lying beneath.
Next, the police were thought to have been too soft with the rioters
though, once again, the back story is still more complex. Since the death
of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in 2009, public order policing has
been under intense scrutiny, and increasingly guided by a philosophy
of facilitating legitimate protest even as discontent regarding several
major areas of public policy began to grow. The police were still largely
embracing this approach even as the protests into the Tottenham shooting
turned swiftly into riot and disorder. Understandably, politicians do
not want the police to facilitate riot, but in the early stages, for the police
(lacking numbers and a wider public order support infrastructure) the
alternative perhaps even more unpalatable - would have been hand to
hand fghting in the streets. Unfortunately rather than backing traditional
strategies for containing the disorder, senior politicians from the PM
down, signaled their willingness to sanction tougher measures (plastic
bullets and water-cannon resources the police did not ask for, they
know they have to police these same communities the following day) in
an oxymoronic strategy to fght violence and disorder. Throwing police
at social problems may be a tried and trusted response to disorder but
it is almost guaranteed to exacerbate social tensions as Lord Scarman
acknowledged back in 1981.
Other instant diagnoses of the riots proved to be
just as fallible.
No doubt picking up on the urban youth and street gang narratives that
have become prevalent over the past decade, the rapid spread of the
rioting was attributed to the activities of gangs, some of them cunningly
employing Twitter and Facebook, to disseminate the riot message
(prompting calls to shut down Twitter during moments of civil unrest). In
any event, David Cameron duly declared war on gangs and gang culture
although, barely three weeks later Theresa May told the Home Affairs
select committee that the proportions of rioters who were gang involved
at 19% - was much less than originally estimated. However, even that,
phrase, gang involved is often a highly inventive construct of police
intelligence, as gang researchers the world over are well aware.
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Next, picking up on a wider youth-related narrative, a sequence of moral,
state of the nation, panics which, since the killing of Jamie Bulger in
1993 have dominated the politics of youth and youth justice in particular
(not growing out of crime, persistent young offenders, anti-social
behaviour, culture of impunity, Respect agenda, knife crime), the riots
were attributed to the actions of the feral underclass youth populating
our inner cities who took the opportunity presented to indulge in a
little shopping with violence in historian David Starkeys unfortunate
phrase. There were, from the start, different versions of this account,
corresponding loosely to left and right political viewpoints. In the former,
the riots were the revengeful actions of dispossessed youth, fed a daily
diet of glamorous consumer hedonism, but denied the opportunity to
experience it frst hand. In the latter, the young rioters were evidence
of the demoralized state of Broken Britain; they were under-educated
and un-skilled, the products of bad habits, absent discipline and lousy
parenting, permissive morality and overgenerous welfare. Such people
were easily led and, by way of thoroughly undermining any legitimate
or community grievances they may have had (not that such questions
are usually asked), susceptible to the call of the mob in the heat of the
moment. Except, as soon as the Guardian began to reveal its analysis of
the 2,700-odd people arrested in the wake of the riots, it turned out that
less than a ffth were under-eighteen anyway rather more were in their
twenties and older.
So contrary to David Camerons simple criminality, the closer one looks
the more complex the riot picture begins to appear and the less satisfactory
any single line of analysis. It remains to be seen how receptive politicians
and policy-makers will be to the more complex and nuanced message;
too often they seem reluctant to listen, condemnation of criminals is the
only game in town, explanation is confated with offering excuses. In such
a situation, an informed and relevant social science needs to keep asking
the diffcult questions and building an evidence base that allows us to
understand the events. It is not enough just to seek the views of victims.
The centre of the evidence base has to be the perspective of those who
were most involved. Without them we can speculate and talk about them
but will never really know why they did what they did or what might be
done about it. It is more than good social science or improved evidence
based policy making; it is also a more accountable process for democratic
governance.
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
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ONLINE TWO PAGE 7
by Ann Oakley
A forgotten
educational
pioneer
Barbara Wootton was a social scientist, a policy-
reformer, an environmental campaigner, a
magistrate, a novelist, the frst woman to give
University lectures in Cambridge, the frst woman
life peer in the House of Lords, and much, much
else.
My attention was frst drawn to her when I was taken at the age of thirteen
by my father, a London University professor, to meet her in her house
in Surrey. She lived there with two donkeys, which impressed me. Later
on as an economics student I read her astoundingly sensible The Social
Foundations of Wage Policy which begins with a famous comparison
between her own academic salary and that of the elephant which gave
rides to children at Whipsnade Zoo (it was better to be the elephant) and
then, even later than that, when I was struggling to set up an enterprise of
systematic reviews of social research, I was gripped by her Social Science
and Social Pathology, with its cutting analysis of the parlous state of much
so-called social science research.
I think the best analogy for writing a biography is crime fction. Both begin
with a dead body, and both require the abilities of a super-sleuth to tease
out the realities behind multiple layers of speculation. A Critical Woman
took me four years to research and write, and happily the publishers never
noticed that I exceeded the word limit specifed in my contract by about
50,000 words. What can you do when somebody lives such a long time
Ann Oakley is
a writer and a
sociologist best
known for her
work on sex and
gender, housework,
childbirth and
feminist social
science. She is
Professor of
Sociology and
Social Policy
at the Institute
of Education,
University of
London.
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(91 years) and does so much? They had to forcibly retire Baroness Wootton
as Deputy Speaker (she was the frst woman to sit on the Woolsack a
most uncomfortable place, she called it) in the House of Lords in her 89th
year. What a radical socialist was doing in the House of Lords in the frst
place was one among many puzzles about her life I had to unravel; another
was her ambivalent position in relation to higher education and the
university system.
In the course of her life Barbara Wootton collected thirteen honorary
degrees, but she said she could never get over being allowed to have any
kind of degree. In the Cambridge of 1919 when she fnished her studies
in economics at Girton College, she gained the best frst-class degree in
that subject anyone had ever had, but women were not allowed (until
1948) to have degrees. When a few years on, as Director of Studies in
Economics at Girton, she gave some University lectures, these had to be
advertised as being given by a man. Her experiences at her alma mater of
discrimination, snobbery and status-hierarchy drove her away into the
arms of research for the TUC and the Labour Party, and then into a long
career running tutorial classes for the extra-mural department of the
University of London.
There exists in the archives at Senate House
a charming little brown notebook in Barbara
Woottons handwriting.
It records the abilities or otherwise of people who wanted to teach
University of London extra-mural classes. Some of the names in the book
are now so famous that, when the Senate House archivist spotted me
reading it, he took it away. Barbara did a sterling job for 17 years (from
1927 to 1944) running the extra-mural department, work that involved not
only teaching classes herself, and selecting tutors, but fnding premises,
monitoring and supervising the teaching, and sorting out problems which
could range from broken gas fres and the shortage of books to serious
misbehaviour (of either students or tutors). The fact that the enterprise
kept going throughout the diffcult years of the Second World War was a
tribute to her energy: in 1943-4 there were 88 different classes, with 1,583
students, to manage. Extra-mural work also raised the very knotty issue of
academic standards.
Every year, Barbara read hundreds of specimen essays sent to her by
class tutors on subjects as diverse as the Desirability of Paid Magistrates
and the Character of Mercutio, and every year she held up her hands in
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despair. The problem was a clash between the openness of the extra-mural
system and conventional standards of scholarship. Students selected their
own classes, rather than being selected by the system; some took classes
just to meet other students, some were understandably after qualifcations
that would get them better jobs or more pay. Many did not appreciate that
academic work is more than just recycling what the tutor has told you,
or reciting your own experience. (This is a problem teachers in higher
education today will still recognise.)
The adult education movement, which embraced structures such as
the one Barbara Wootton ran in London and the Workers Educational
Association, with which she also worked, was an extremely important
route into education for those whose social positions had provided them
with minimal or even no secondary education at all. Barbara Wootton was
passionately committed to it. Education for her was both a democratic
right and an instrument of democracy. She believed in universal free
state education, in comprehensive schools, in universities as places which
would generate practical knowledge to inform public policy. But she found
herself historically in an awkward place, caught between the traditional
values of ivory-tower scholarship (her parents were both classicists and
she herself had read classics at Cambridge before changing to economics),
and the practical purposes of education, which were about empowerment
and attainment.
This clash of values worked itself out in her
personal life.
Her frst husband, Jack Wootton, was another Cambridge student; they
married when she was twenty, but Jack was killed fve weeks later in the
Battle of Passchendaele. When she married again eighteen years later, her
second husband, George Wright, was one of her extra-mural students. He
came from a working class family in west London, had not had a great deal
of schooling, and drove a taxi for a living. The political left was delighted
at what LSE students, who dispatched a wedding telegram, called a union
of theory and practice; Beatrice Webb wrote to congratulate Barbara on
taking a partner in research. George and Barbara had a lot of fun together
for a few years, but doing research wasnt part of it. George was a great
character: he behaved as though the classless society already existed,
said Barbara. Unfortunately he also behaved quite badly, having various
secondary wives, which eventually caused Barbara to leave him, and
being dismissed from his job at Transport House because they found him
running a little secretarial business on the side.
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One of the frst of Barbaras many articles and academic papers I read was
called Refections on resigning a professorship. She published it in 1952,
but its a startlingly modern piece, and it tells part of the unhappy story of
Barbaras sojourn in mainstream higher education.
In 1944 she applied for two posts that were advertised at the same time:
a Professorship in Social Institutions at LSE and a Readership in Social
Studies at Bedford College. The famous William Beveridge wrote her
references. Barbara and Beveridge had worked together on his social
security plan, and also on a shared vision of a union of nations committed
to world peace the ground-plan of what would later become the
European Community. The LSE job went to a male theorist, and Barbara
went to Bedford College, then an all-female college, to take charge of what
was basically a department of social workers. In 1948 they elevated her to
a professorship and she chose the title of social studies rather than social
science or sociology. She disliked the term sociology as pretentious, and
social studies werent yet scientifc enough to justify that name.
The late 1940s and early 1950s were a period of
expansion for social studies/science, and especially
for social research.
The Clapham Committee, reporting in 1946, recommended an injection of
between 6.5 and 7.8 million (at 2010 prices) into social and economic
research. The University Grants Committee expanded its grant for this
purpose, and Barbara in her new Bedford College post was one of the
benefciaries. She set up one of the frst (if not the frst) social research
unit, and embarked on an ambitious programme of empirical research.
This story did not have a happy ending, however, as the opposition of
colleagues and especially historian Lillian Penson, who was also Vice-
Chancellor of the University of London, resulted in the grant being
handed back to the UGC and the research unit being disbanded. Barbara,
thoroughly disillusioned with the standards of academic behaviour,
applied for and got a Nuffeld Foundation grant to study the state of social
research. Bedford consented to house the research in the old servants
quarters in Regents Park, but stripped Barbara of her professorial title.
Before the Nuffeld work was fnished, Barbara became Baroness Wootton
of Abinger, and started a new career (at the age of 61) as the House of
Lords expert on economics, criminal justice, environmental issues and
many other more interesting topics than the petty squabbles of academic
life. Her vision of how the higher education system could produce sensible
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and practical knowledge for politicians and policy-makers was, perhaps,
simply too far ahead of its time.
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TWO
Sally Hunt, UCU General Secretary, was asked
by The Guardian this month to explain the
importance of pensions to members.
This is what she wrote.
When it comes
to defending
pensions, we are
all militants
People like to divide the unions into moderates
and militants, but we are all militants when it
comes to defending and advancing pension rights.
So said former TUC general secretary John Monks, and he was absolutely
right. For the 120,000 members of the University and College Union
(UCU) that I represent, pensions are not simply a beneft of service to be
given and taken away on a whim.
Pensions are hard-won deferred pay and if you attack them you will fnd
the unlikely militants will bite back. Our members are employed in two
different pension schemes and both are under attack.
The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) was formed jointly by
employers and unions four decades ago to provide pensions for academic
and academic-related staff in the traditional universities.
Staff working in the modern universities and further education colleges
are members of the Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS).
TPS scheme members are in dispute with the government over changes
to public sector pensions. USS members are battling against detrimental
changes imposed by the countrys second biggest private scheme.
The USS scheme is in good fnancial health, yet the changes will see an end
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to the fnal salary scheme, lower pensions for new staff, less protection
against infation and reduced pensions for staff made redundant the
latter a particular worry at the moment.
The changes have twice been rejected by over 90% of members of the
scheme in consultation exercises. That is why our USS members have
voted for a sustained industrial action campaign. Not because they want
to. Not because they are militant. Not because they want to hurt their
students. But because the proposals are unfair, unnecessary and without
mandate.
As action begins in USS, colleagues in TPS confrmed that they, along
with a host of public sector unions, will take action at the end of November
if the government continues to refuse to negotiate properly about changes
to their pensions.
A lobby of Parliament has also been organised by the education unions
for the Wednesday of half-term (26 October) to keep up the pressure, but
minimise disruption for students and parents.
I, and my union colleagues, have made it clear that the negotiations need
to be more than just the government seeking the best ways to implement
pre-ordained changes. They need to be a genuine dialogue and they need
to address whether changes are really justifed by the valuation of the fund.
One would hope that the prospect of the largest day of co-ordinated strike
action in a generation would focus government minds on trying to resolve
the dispute, but instead ministers have once again taken to the airwaves to
condemn the unions.
So does that make extended industrial confict inevitable in either TPS or
USS, or indeed across the public sector? I hope not. There is still time for
USS and the government to change tack and agree to serious negotiations,
genuinely aimed at reaching a solution.
The pensions my members get are hardly, in the governments words,
gold-plated. Women who teach in further education, for example, retire on
an average pension of just 6,000 a year.
We have fought for generations for the right to dignity in retirement and
we will not let these rights go in the blink of an eye. We may be unlikely
militants but we are determined and we will see this through to the end.

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article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
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ONLINE TWO PAGE 14
Professor Ken
Spours is Head
of the Department
of Continuing
and Professional
Education at
the Institute of
Education.
A real education
revolution:
why education is too
important to be treated
as a political football
Education is arguably the most important thing
societies do.
It can transform lives, support economies and cohere communities
and society itself. If we step back just for a second and think about the
commitment to educate someone throughout the life-course, we come to
realise that education is a truly remarkable human achievement. However,
we did not arrive here by accident; we had to fght for it and we are
struggling for it still. Education is therefore very important. In fact it is too
important to be treated as some sort of political football.
Pictured left, you will recognize a somewhat
younger Tony Blair. He brought politics
to the centre of education with his slogan
education, education, education.
These days when I hear a minister or
politician state that education reform is
their biggest priority, my heart sinks. Why?
Well lets just look at whats been going
on for the last three decades. They tend
to treat education as a plaything; what
Ewart Keep refers to as the biggest train
set in the world. Constant change becomes
tied to ministerial careers with every new
Professor Ken Spours
PRESS ASSOCIATION
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appointment feeling they have to leave their mark and double quick too.
Moreover, an adversarial political climate fuels the deliberate manufacture
of confict; the generation of opposites and dichotomies because of the
calculation that political gain is to be had in the development of difference.
Opportunities for agreement are ignored. In this climate, politicians have
little incentive to genuinely learn from the past and they exhibit little if
any policy memory. In fact most appear to suffer from an advanced case of
policy amnesia because everything is meant to be shiny and new. It is the
constant zigzag of policy that inhibits the gradual accumulation of wisdom
about education, despite the fact that we know more than ever about
how people learn and what works. This politicisation of education tires
teachers, puzzles parents and employers and instils a pervasive sense of
discontent. Nothing is ever right.
A real English education revolution based on
agreed values
It does not have to be this way. What I am proposing here is a real English
education revolution, based on moderation, balance, deliberation and
agreement. In doing so, I am suggesting four important steps. First,
we must try to fnd ways of distancing education from party politics, of
passing the power around. Some other countries are more successful in
this respect, establishing a degree of consensus about their education
systems. Our problems appear to be a peculiarly English disease. Second,
we need to slow down politics and widen participation in the policy
process. Fast politics excludes. Third, we should focus on deliberation
and the use of evidence rather than tolerating policy produced by political
whim. And fnally, and here is the most radical proposal, we should also
try to seek out agreement.
At this point I will offer an observation. Politicians are obsessed
by reforming structures, whether these be in relation to schools or
qualifcations. It is these that tend to fuel political disagreements because
they are essentially about the shape of the education state. If we want to try
to forge agreements, we should start frst with a discussion around values.
It may be easier to start building a consensus around these than around
structures.
And where might we start when it comes to values? Well I suggest three,
although Im sure that there are many more. First, the principle that
everyone counts, that everyone can be educated, that everyone can think
as well as do, because this is the essence of the human condition. The frst
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principle is, therefore, of one of educability. Second, I propose the law
of care, that those who are in the greatest need get more because we are
morally obliged to produce a level pitch. Unfortunately, an inverse law of
care prevails presently - those who have get. Third, we should promote a
belief in a holistic curriculum.
Moving from the world of versus to the world of
and
The current government seeks political refuge in unnecessary dualisms;
for example, knowledge versus skills or subjects versus real world
understanding. I think it would it would be far more productive to think
about knowledge and skills or subjects and real world understanding. This
more holistic approach, moving from the world of versus to the world of
and, takes us to a far more interesting place.
I noticed that Prime Minister David Cameron has said that all fresh ideas
can only be for the good of our education system. Well, I will take him at
his word. But frst I want to make another observation, and that is that the
Prime Minister and his Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove,
still appear to remain practitioners in the world of versus and drawn to
polarities. But I want to make them an offer; to join with me and others, to
walk together from the world of versus to the world of and. In this place
of moderation and balance everyone could still keep their fundamental
beliefs, but could begin to appreciate the views of others.
Thinking ecologically about education
On this journey to the world of and we could also start to think about
education in more ecological terms. In Finding Nemo (which is a very
good flm by the way) Bruce the shark realizes that the actions of one
affects the health of another which, in Bruces case, were pretty profound
ones for all the fsh on reef. As Bruce begins to think ecologically, he
declares I have to change my image; Im not a mindless eating machine.
Fish are friends not food. Well, we should all be inspired by Bruce. If he
can do it, so can politicians.
Bruce changed himself and made a pledge and this brings me to my
pledge.
A Hippocratic Oath for Education
We now need a Hippocratic Oath for Education to embody our
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fundamental values and around which we can begin to agree. As a tribute
to the great psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, who took an ecological
approach to human development, and at the risk of overcomplicating
things, I want to propose an oath involving three fundamental educational
actors in their ecological settings. First, at the micro-ecological level of
the learner (their most immediate learning environment), teachers could
dedicate themselves to their learners, to nurture their talents through
thick and thin.
Second, at the meso- or exo-level, headteachers or college principals, some
of whom are the most voracious sharks I know, could pledge themselves
to supporting 100 per cent of learners in their area and not just those in
their own institution. If this were the case, Id be far less exercised about
the effects of institutional diversifcation academies, free schools,
state schools and colleges because of the popular pressure to take the
pledge. Third, and at the national macro-ecological level, politicians
could promise to offer real leadership by giving power way and providing
educationalists at the levels below the tools to do the job. This means that
those running our political system will need not only to have confdence in
their own strategic capacity, but also to be safe in the knowledge that those
on the ground are able to deliver lasting and sustainable change better
then they.
I will work with a range of social and political partners to develop this
kind of agreement within the education system because of my belief that
lasting progressive reform now has to be values-led and based on as much
consensus as possible.
Ideas emerge because we create the conditions for
their realization
However, I want to leave you with a warning. If we are not able to move
some way down this road, then all the great ideas around will fnd it very
diffcult to see light of day in our education system. Good ideas do not
simply emerge because they are good; they also emerge because we create
the conditions for their realization. This is perhaps what I am referring to
when I talk about the need for a real education revolution.
^
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ONLINE TWO PAGE 18
Elizabeth Schafer refects on the
dog eat dog world of professorial pay.
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Last year I was promoted.
I moved from being a professor, one amongst many, kicking around in
a large category called the professoriate to being a banded professor,
one who now has her salary tied to criteria that actually spell out what
my HEI thinks I should be doing for the money it pays me. I got a hefty
pay rise primarily because there were, at last, rules to the game of salary
negotiation. I dont think the rules adopted are particularly good, but now
there are rules in existence at least I can market my achievements to the
published criteria.
The long and winding road that led to my promotion to the rank of banded
professor included a three-and-a-half week sojourn at the Reading
Employment Tribunal where I had a great deal of opportunity to refect
more generally on the business of promotion and academia. Certainly this
has changed a lot since I joined the profession. And when I was trained
as a postgraduate student in research methodologies, I was schooled in
areas such as bibliography, palaeography, historiography; now I fnd
what I need most are skills in basic marketing; economics for beginners;
a crash course in how to negotiate without getting cranky; plus a dash
of employment law. Indeed, it seems to me that that some of the skills
required for really sustained, rigorous and robust research tenacity
bordering on obsession; fascination with the obscure; manic attention
to detail - are not always compatible with the attributes that seem most
PROMOTION
Elizabeth
Schafer is
Professor of Drama
and Theatre Studies
at Royal Holloway,
University of
London. UCU
supported
Professor Schafers
tribunal case
and continues to
argue for collective
negotiation of
professor pay.
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valued at present: telly friendly communication skills; a photogenic
appearance; the ability to chase various defnitions of the word impact;
success in securing mega grants; a conviction that the lone scholar is a
dead as the dodo.
There is also a problem for many academics in marketing themselves
for promotion at any rank: if you are any good as a researcher then you
will, almost inevitably, be something of a self doubter. Part of writing the
second (or ffth or tenth) draft of an article, or scrutinising your results,
or testing your hypothesis rigorously one more time is self criticism and
self doubt. In order to be sceptical thinkers, questioning the evidence,
interrogating the theoretical framework, checking the scholarship,
academics have to be prone to self criticism. As a result academia is full of
people suffering from impostor syndrome; and these are the academics
who are most likely to be under promoted and under paid.
Academics also need to treat themselves as serious
research projects.
I once heard a senior manager speak very satirically about a colleague
who seemed to rush off to brush up their CV every time they attended
a committee meeting. But, as I learned last year, that is actually a very
strategic thing to do. At the Employment Tribunal I was being asked about
teaching loads going back ten years. Because I had forgotten what courses
I was teaching in 2001 I had to go digging around to fnd out. I excavated
committee minutes going back decades. Under cross examination from a
QC, I wanted to be able to wave around proof that I was on that committee,
that I attended meetings and that I contributed. My situation was unusual
but it has taught me that keeping my CV up to date, plus keeping evidence
to back it up, is very important.
In fact I used to think that the annual submission of my CV for inspection
was a chore; now I see it as a crucial self marketing and documentation
process. In addition, I now also keep evidence about things I have been
asked to do but that I have turned down; and never again will I respond to
a head hunting email by thinking oh thats nice and then pressing delete.
That email is the kind of evidence senior management respects. Given my
own pay history, it appears to me that a 70,000 word monograph full of
groundbreaking research is worth peanuts in pay negotiations compared
with an email suggesting that a rival HEI might be after you.
Another reason many academics are poorly paid is because they tend not
to talk about salaries. But if you cant bear to gossip about how much you
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earn, you can research the evidence. The THE publishes league tables of
salary averages. How far adrift of your HEIs average are you, and is that
appropriate? If it isnt then talk strategies with friends and colleagues.
Look at each others promotion or pay applications and offer constructive
criticism. There are quite possibly people at your HEI in economics
or management - who have researched payment practices in academia
and related felds. Pick their brains; offer yourself as a case study; read
the research thats available online. If you are really struggling to fnd out
information then put in a freedom of information request for averages
in your faculty. However, dont ever put anything in an email that you are
not prepared to hear read out in court and remember that your HEI has
the legal right to access your institutional email account; use private email
addresses to discuss salary and promotion strategy.
Loyalty is also an important consideration.
During the past few years I have been introduced to the loyal servant
theory. In academia loyalty is often not rewarded, rather it is underpaid
and undervalued, and if you are seen as a loyal servant that can be costly.
And yet most academics seem to have an ambivalence in relation to loyalty
and their HEI. Academics usually say they work at an HEI not for an
HEI and the at is very suggestive. My research and my grants move if I
do. My teaching skills go with me. I brought in money to my HEI via the
RAE and will do via REF, but I would bring that money in to another HEI
if I moved there. But if my paymasters consider me loyal, for whatever
reason, I am less likely to be seen as a retention risk and that can affect my
pay or promotion chances very signifcantly. So if I am known to be a pillar
of the local community, it may count against me because I am perceived to
be less likely to leave.
For me, this issue is best illustrated by the example of kids; if anyone in
the food chain that is assessing your bid for promotion or a pay rise knows
that you have kids in good local schools then you will be seen as less likely
to leave. But if you are known to be commuting 120 miles to work, or
your partner lives in Edinburgh and you work in London, then you are
more plausible if you threaten to jump ship. Unfortunately, the evidence
suggests, that expressing discontent with local house prices/schools/etc
is more likely to do the trick for men. So my cynical advice is if you are a
man then, unless you are in a department being targeted for cuts by senior
management, talk about how many HEIs would be interested in having
your publications for their REF submission.
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If you are a woman, do the same but read up on the loyal servant theory,
gender gaps in pay and the equal pay act, watch Made in Dagenham and
then write your application.
Higher Education is not the best environment at present for talking
promotion and pay rises. But what I think of as The Proudfoot Principle
should always be invoked. When I applied for my very frst job the
supervisor of my PhD thesis, Richard Proudfoot, responded to my shall I?
shant I? wittering with a pronouncement I have come back to many times
since: If you apply for this job, I do not know if you will get it. What I do
know is that you will not get this job if you do not apply for it. Its a version
of dont ask, dont get but the dry tones in which the Proudfoot principle
was uttered also suggested that applying for a job, a promotion, a pay
rise, has to be treated a bit like a game; and if you dont have the mindset
of someone playing a game, you risk getting battered and bruised. Of
course, money and status are not the main reasons academics go into their
careers; many have turned their backs on more lucrative professions. But
some academics have been playing a very canny game for many
years. . . .
And do you really want to be taken for granted?
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
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ONLINE PAGE 22 TWO
Delivering fairness
in promotion policy:
the Leeds story
At a time when the whole of the post-16 education
system is under threat there is a danger of equality
falling of the agenda.
On the one hand we have the defence of our jobs and terms and condition
of service and on the other we have our fears for the future of the education
system that we all care for passionately. Amidst this we need to be careful
to ensure that equality concerns do not fall through the middle. This is
an account of how women organising at the University of Leeds one of
our largest local associations have managed not only to put the under-
promotion of women high on the agenda, but also to be instrumental in
processes leading to procedures and interventions that are designed to
address this deep-rooted problem.
In 2005, as womens contact on the then AUT committee, I fnally did
what I had been planning to do for a couple of years and initiated the
setting up of a womens group. Two issues immediately established
themselves as priorities: childcare and the question of why women were
so thinly represented in promoted grades. On promotion we realised
instantly that our feeling that women were not getting the promotions
they deserved had to be substantiated if we were to get the issue taken
seriously. Through our normal negotiating procedures we asked for data
and we were given it; all staff in all grades broken down by faculty/service
and gender. However what we were given was HESA data in the form of
barely useable pivot tables and it was the hard work and expertise of one
of our members in the computing service which enabled us to translate
this into the instantly obvious evidence that confrmed that our anecdotal
assessments had been absolutely correct.
Ann Blair is a
senior lecturer
in law at the
University of Leeds.
She also chairs
the UCU national
women members
standing committee.
PROMOTION
Ann Blair
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We presented this data in the form of a series of bar charts by faculty/
service; staff each grade represented by a red bar for women and a blue bar
for men. And this showed in every case, whatever the gender balance in
the entry grade be it social science or engineering, a rising tide of blue as
you looked from left to right across the page from the higher to the lower
grades. These graphs went into a PowerPoint presentation which was
taken frst to a general meeting and then to the joint committee. This faced
university management with an undeniable and graphic representation
of the scale of the problem and the university was unable to resist the
pressure to do something signifcant in response.
It turned out that our timing was good.
We had a newly appointed pro vice-chancellor in post and I was newly
co-opted to an offcer vacancy in the local AUT (having realised that you
cant really complain about management unless your local committee and
offcers is as representative as you can make it) and jointly the university
and the trade union engaged in a listening exercise to establish what the
reasons for this were. This exercise concentrated on the boundary that
seemed to be most problematic between grade 8 and grade 9 (lecturer/
senior lecturer) and proved very important. A meeting was organised for
women in each faculty alongside meeting that was held for BME staff who
faced the same issues.
We were able to present our data along with a presentation from
management demonstrating joint commitment to resolving the problem
and the meetings then heard woman after woman telling their own stories
about the diffculties and obstacles they faced. These were stories of the
insidious impact of the boys clubs, the activities organised at times when
they needed to be at home, the poor advice and support, the loading with
low status tasks and a culture of overwork and presenteeism that many
women either could not play a part in or simply refused to play a part
in. The meetings resulted in a joint report with recommendations and
resulted in several initiatives.
The University management held high level meetings with women who
had broken through into senior positions to see how they could help to
establish better pathways to promotion for their female colleagues. There
was work on women in science that led to the award of an Athena Swan
Bronze medal. Staff review processes were refocused on the need for
timely advice on promotions and on the need to ensure that all staff would
get the development opportunities that would help justify promotion in a
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timely fashion. Promotions advisers (male and female) were appointed in
each school and service.
However the largest piece of work which came out of our initiative was
for the University to completely rewrite promotions procedures to
make these fairer and to ensure that the criteria were clearer and more
transparent. This was also undertaken as joint work with the campus
trade unions and by now as UCU we were able to have signifcant input
into the shape and ethos of the procedures and their supporting guidance
and documentation. The importance of the follow up work and union
involvement has been that the lessons learned from an initiative that
concentrated on one grade boundary for a group of academic staff was
translated into action that benefts all staff on all grades. The listening
exercise was never designed as an exclusionary activity (though some
people felt it so at the time) but as one that used an area of obvious concern
to make the case for change more generally.
Is it working?
It seems that as far as the grade 9 promotions are concerned it is. More
women have proportionately been coming forward and their applications
have been succeeding. Disappointingly however, recent data on
professorial grade 10 criteria which have only been in place for a year
shows more men promoted to professor than women. The reasons for
this will need close examination but locally women are getting together
to support each other to push for a concerted effort to break through this
barrier. There will need to be ongoing efforts to review progress and to
ensure that the supporting development and advice is being given and
acted on and women members of UCU can be instrumental in agitating for
this to take place.
Is our relationship with management on this always an easy one and are
there no battles left? no. Constant vigilance is required and we suffered
a major blow with the decision, despite our best efforts, to abolish the
readership title at Leeds which was seen by women as a manageable and
valuable step on the promotions ladder to grade 10; one that granted
status and visibility in the academic community. However overall the
Leeds experience does illustrate what can be done with a little organising,
some bursts of intense activity and a strategy that uses good data to
provoke an institution into turning its formal commitment to equality into
action. The strategy has been successful in part because it has exploited
alliances with those in management who do have a genuine commitment
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to equality (they do exist) and it should be acknowledged that it has also
been successful in part as a result of a modicum of good luck with the
timing of the initiative.
Times may not be as good at present as when we started on this road at
Leeds, but nevertheless this represents an effective model for womens
organising and of the power of a process that ensures that management
do hear many womens voices on a subject that affects them deeply and
personally because of the injustice they are suffering. It is a model that
many other local associations and branches in FE and HE could try, and if
your branch or association is struggling to make this a priority a womens
group can be initiated by ordinary members working together. UCUs
women members standing committee would be glad to hear from you and
to offer support in getting this off the ground.
^
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stand
Heading
ONLINE PAGE 26 TWO
Sir Alan Langlands is Chief Executive of the Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in turbulent times. Here he
answers questions posed by UC Editor Matt Waddup.
Sir Alan
Langlands
Will HEFCE still be here in ten years, and if so with what role?
Yes, I really do think that HEFCE will still be here. We are an important
broker between Government and the higher education sector and, on the
whole, trusted by both. The December 2010 grant letter from Government
asks that we continue to perform our current role on its existing statutory
basis for 2011-12 and 2012-13. Subject to consultation, and legislation,
HEFCE will take on a new role as lead independent regulator from
academic year 2013-14, safeguarding the collective interest of students
and the public. Critically, we will continue to provide funding required
to support public beneft objectives: to support widening participation
and retention, high cost and vulnerable disciplines and small specialist
institutions. We will also remain the single biggest research funder in the
UK and a key player in promoting innovation and enterprise education.
HEFCE has a reputation for cost-effectiveness, openness and impartiality
direct government control of higher education is not a realistic option,
even medium or long term.
Given your background as a scientist, what do you think of
successive governments policies in supporting science?
Infuential science Ministers William Waldegrave, David Sainsbury
THEBIGINTERVIEW
Alan Langlands
is the Chief
Executive of the
Higher Education
Funding Council
for England. He
was formerly the
Principal and
Vice-Chancellor of
the University of
Dundee (2000 to
2009) and Chief
Executive of the
NHS in England
(1994 to 2000).
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and now David Willetts have been effective in protecting resources
for science and research, and the Treasury (even now) is generally
sympathetic to investment in this area. The pre-requisites for success are:
l sustaining the balance between curiosity-driven research and work
targeted on national priorities
l long-term commitment of funding
l maintaining the dual-support system
l investing in infrastructure and good people
l vibrant postgraduate and postdoctoral communities
l the Research Excellence Framework.
We could always use more money, but we score pretty well against these
criteria and remain highly productive and internationally competitive.
You have some experience of marketisation from your time
in the NHS. What do you see as the chief benefts and dangers
from the governments plans to open up competition?
Commenting in 2008 on the 60th anniversary of the NHS, I wrote:
The intricate gavotte between the policies of choice, markets, regulation
and targets is diffcult to follow in the abstract, but there is growing
evidence that these policies might be refned , calibrated and applied
differentially to tackle quality improvement, the management of chronic
illness and the use of the Quality and Outcomes framework to treat risk
factors in primary care. The NHS is at its best when it is being pragmatic.
The specifc examples in this quote dont really matter, but I have many
of the same feelings now. It will be important to learn lessons as we
implement the policies set out in the White Paper on higher education
and make adjustments based on experience. We must not lose sight of
the key objective of maintaining excellence and diversity in learning and
teaching, world-leading research and our enviable record of knowledge
exchange. The higher education sector will also be at its best when it is
being pragmatic!
In your speech to April HEFCEs conference you say that
proposed changes to funding need to be carefully handled in
order to maintain the UKs academic reputation. To what extent
do you think government has followed your advice?
I think that Government is doing all that it can to support higher education
in very diffcult fnancial circumstances:
l total funding for higher education institutions is actually expected to
increase by 2014-15 this will consist of around 2 billion in teaching
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grant plus around 7 billion in tuition loans, as well as around 1.5 billion
in quality-related research grant
l recognition of quality of research in UK universities as a national
asset with ring-fenced science budget until the end of the spending
review period. This will help the UK compete with growing international
competition, and help sustain our world-leading and highly effcient
research base with the UK being second in the world for excellence
and the most productive country for research in the G8, producing more
publications and citations per pound of public funding than any other
major country.
That said, I do not underestimate the impact of higher fees on graduates
and their families, and I have some anxieties about the possible effect of
the new arrangements on demand and participa-
tion levels. As the new arrangements are imple-
mented HEFCE will monitor progress, report and
prompt action if required. We will track student
demand and participation levels; the effect of the
new student loan arrangements on widening par-
ticipation and part-time students; trends in stu-
dents entering postgraduate taught and research
programmes; student fee levels; and the impact of
increased competition on quality. Our internation-
al reputation is also critically dependant on the motivation and expertise
of staff in universities and colleges, and we should not underestimate the
importance of a coherent approach to employee relations, education and
training, pay and reward, and good communications during this period
if anything this need for coherence is more important than ever at this
testing time of change and economic restraint.
Ministers such as Vince Cable have said they are relaxed
about some HEIs going out of business. What would HEFCE
do to protect institutions and their staff and students in this
situation?
HEFCE will have a statutory responsibility to protect the interests of stu-
dents and a clear responsibility to enable them to complete their studies.
The employment relationship is between individual members of staff and
the institution in which they are employed HEFCE has no locus in this. I
do not expect fnancial failures in the next few years: despite the effects of
early public funding cuts in the period of recession, total income in higher
education continued to grow in 2009-10, with an overall increase of 5.7%
on the previous year. Universities are also taking tough decisions to reduce
I have some
anxieties about
the possible
efect on
demand and
participation
levels.
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costs, and I expect strong fnancial results in 2010-11. Looking forward
and of course subject to reasonable patterns of demand and student par-
ticipation universities are in pretty good fnancial health over the next
few years. The responsibility for good fnancial stewardship rests squarely
within governing bodies: by adopting a risk-based approach to fnancial
regulation, HEFCE will work in partnership with university managers
and governing bodies to promptly address any problems that might arise.
Government seems to see students as primarily consumers
rather than as learners. What is your view of this?
I dont agree with the central premise of the question. Ministers
understand the difference between consumers and the importance of
engaging students as part of a learning community. I believe that, at its
best, higher education changes lives. It is enriching and inspiring for
students and it is vital to social mobility, future economic growth and the
international standing of the country. The contribution that knowledge
makes to society as a whole, and to the intellectual development of
individuals, must stand proud above the inevitable discussion about
return on investment. This is a time of signifcant change and we all have
a clear responsibility to explain the new arrangements to existing and
prospective students, their advisers in schools, parents, employers and the
wider public. Prospective students from all age ranges and backgrounds
should have ready access to the information they need to help decide
what, where and how they want to study. And, of course, they also need to
understand the importance of actively engaging in the learning process.
Private operator BPP have said they are worried about
HEFCEs regulatory role following your report which warned
that the goals of private providers may not match the national
interest. How would you respond to that?
The HEFCE report you refer to was prepared prior to the publication of
the White Paper and in a very different political and economic context. The
proposal to establish HEFCE as the lead independent regulator is subject
to consultation and legislation I am taking nothing for granted in the
meantime. The intention is to put new arrangements in place from 2013
that will safeguard the interests of students and taxpayers while keeping
bureaucracy to a minimum and ensuring that universities, colleges and
other providers of higher education have the freedom and incentives they
need to deliver a high quality student experience. The new framework will
require a more integrated approach to assuring quality, access, fnancial
sustainability and information reporting. I am not ideologically opposed
to the greater involvement of the private sector: greater plurality that
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injects innovation, expertise and high quality in the future provision of
higher education will be a welcome feature of the new arrangements.
HEFCE has pioneered substantial research into widening
participation. What is your view of the net effect of the reforms
of recent years up to and including the White Paper on the goal
of achieving fair access to our universities?
The 2010 HEFCE publication, Trends in young participation in higher
education: core results for England showed that the proportion of young
people living in the most disadvantaged areas who enter higher education
had increased by around 30 per cent over the previous fve years. However,
our analysis also showed the full extent of participation inequalities, with
young people living in the most advantaged 20 per cent of areas being
more than fve times more likely to enter higher education than those
living in the least advantaged. At the same time, the proportion of young
people from the most advantaged areas who enter higher education has
increased by 5 per cent over the past fve years.
As we made clear in that report, we attribute the increased participation to
policies and investments across all educational sectors. There is a continu-
ing need to take a much broader view of reforms both within and outside
higher education when considering issues of participation. We pick this up
in HEFCEs strategy statement that we published in July 2011.
We do have to recognise that public funding reductions, the introduction
of higher fees and student number controls may present new challenges.
But we have always been of the view that widening participation in higher
education should not be dependent on increasing the number of students.
Rather it is about ensuring that there is a level playing feld in terms of
the opportunity to participate. Both the Offce for Fair Access (OFFA)
and HEFCE have a role to play here, and we will continue to work with
OFFA to secure the commitments we need from universities and colleges
to promote progress across the whole life cycle of higher education: from
pre-entry, through admission, study support, successful completion at
undergraduate level and progress on to employment or future study.
One fnal thought on this whilst I recognise and acknowledge the
challenges, I also know that there is a huge commitment in universities to
build on the progress that has been made to date. I share this commitment
and will continue to give priority to this area.
^
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ONLINE PAGE 31 TWO
by Jonathan White
Higher education
is not for proft
In May this year, David Willetts revealed in a
written answer to a Parliamentary question, that
he had held talks with representatives of Education
Management Corporation, the USAs second biggest
for-proft higher education company.
In August, the Times Higher reported that Education Management
Corporation was being sued for $11 billion for defrauding the US taxpayer.
What links these events is a drive by powerful Wall Street-backed US for-
proft companies to open up the UK higher education market, with the
active connivance of the Coalition government, at a time when for-proft
companies are in crisis in their own backyard, the USA.
Following the publication of the White Paper, with its tortured attempts
to gerrymander a market out of the higher education sector, among the
happier people were the CEOs of some of the biggest names in the US
for-proft industry. In March this year, Greg Capelli, the Chief Executive
of Apollo, which owns the University of Phoenix and BPP University
College, soothed investors by assuring them that the UK Government is
encouraging private sector growth in the UK post-secondary education
market. Theyre looking for innovative cost-effective solutions to help
meet the growing demand for higher education in the UK. And BPP, with
Apollos support, we think is well-placed as a leader in the sector.
David Willetts came into government promising to remove the barriers to
Jonathan White
is Deputy Head of
UCUs Campaigns
and Organising
Department and
leads for the union
on privatisation
and marketisation
Talking: EDMC and Universities and Science minister David Willetts (right)
GETTY
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entry and growth for private companies and hes certainly delivered on his
promise. The Coalitions White Paper offers up a growing portion of the
HE market to alternative providers, including for-proft companies. They
will be able to bid for 20,000 places from 2013, providing they can offer
them for less than 7500, and every year, this share is set to be increased.
The most likely for-proft bidders will be BPP
University College, which has set its fees for
now at 5000, Kaplan UK and Resource
Development International (RDI), which is
currently in the process of applying for degree
awarding powers. With the White Paper offering
to make it faster and easier for such companies
to obtain degree awarding powers and university
title, it may not be long before Kaplan and Pearson join them. BPP will
undoubtedly be seeking to upgrade themselves to university status, a
move that it has been claimed would bring attract an extra 30-35% more
students.
But the US for-proft companies themselves have
been active agents in this process.
The White Paper has been singularly tortuous in its emergence and
the for-proft industry was not idle in this period. As well as indirectly
lobbying through think tanks like Policy Exchange and commercial law
frm Eversheds, they, have been meeting with David Willetts regularly.
In fact, since March 2010, David Willetts has met with representatives of
the British and US for-proft industry on at least 12 occasions. By contrast,
Million+, which lobbies for post-92 widening participation universities,
has secured his attention on only fve occasions.
The US for-proft companies have also been busy acquiring assets in the
UK. In May 2009, Apollo bought BPP, while in August this year, RDI was
bought by Capella, with a bonus to be paid to the British company if it was
awarded degree-awarding powers. Kaplan UK has been concentrating
on establishing partnerships, while keeping open its options regarding
degree-awarding powers, but it would surely be tempted if the White
Paper becomes legislative reality. In the meantime, Chief Executive Peter
Houillon has said that the company would be interested in acquiring the
running of an institution that was struggling.
This overseas expansion is backed by some of the biggest names in the
Anglo-American fnance sector and major publishing conglomerates.
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Education Management Corporation is owned by two private equity funds,
including Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, an arm of Goldman Sachs
Investment bank, and Providence Equity, which also recently purchased
Study Group International and the education software company
Blackboard. BPP is owned by Apollo Global, a $1bn joint venture formed
by Apollo Group and the Carlyle Group private equity frm. Bridgepoint
Education, another major US for-proft company is owned by Warburg
Pincus, who also recently held meetings with Willetts. Kaplan UK is a
subsidiary of Kaplan inc., part of the Washington Post Company, while
Edexcel, widely tipped to apply for degree-awarding powers, is part of
Pearsons growing educational empire.
What were seeing is the sharpest end of a wide range of developments
bringing the UK higher education sector , along with public services in
general, ever more closely under the control of the private sector, driven by
and acting in the ultimate interests of the fnancial sector -what some have
called the fnancialisation of public services.
In the higher education sector, this fnancialisation embraces the various
forms of PFI-style infrastructural investment, the cuts to direct teaching
funding, the plans to monetize the student loan book and the possibility
of universities transforming their corporate form entirely to become
for-proft entities able to borrow on the capital markets. However, the
growth of a stand-alone, equity-funded for-proft sector is surely the
most dangerous. Such institutions have no academic traditions, practices
or institutions (baggage as they might say) to act as brakes upon their
pursuit of proft. They have a primary obligation to their shareholders
and, as the US experience shows, they are virtually impervious to union
infuence.
So whats in store for us if this strategy succeeds?
We can see by looking at what has happened in the US. Clearly its
impossible to map this experience simply across to the UK. However, since
the for-profts strategy is to replicate in this country the same conditions
that allowed for their astronomical growth in the US, the comparison is
still valid.
For-proft HE in the US grew on a model premised on light-touch
regulation, access to publicly subsidised loans and budget cuts that locked
poorer students out of access to publicly regulated higher education.
For-proft companies targeted poorer communities of students using
aggressive marketing conducted from call-centres. Recruiters were given
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quotas of calls and admissions targets, selling the graduate premium
through the promise of fxing the students up with loans. This was coupled
with a low-cost production model faculty were hired part-time and in
many cases they were not from an academic background. The companies
offered a high proportion of education online and focused on a narrow
range of vocational courses.
In terms of growth and proftability, this was a hugely successful model.
The industry grew from recruiting 2.4% of students in 1986 to enrolling
more than 10% of a far higher total in 2008. More than 1.8 million US
students are enrolled at for-proft institutions. The market became
consolidated around 12-15 big companies, including Apollo, Career
Education Corporation, Education management Corporation and Kaplan,
Bridgepoint and Capella. Rates of proft and stock prices outperformed
the big names of US capitalism, attracting the institutional investors. They
claim that they have delivered opportunity to millions of students locked
out of traditional education. But there have always been questions about
the quality of their product and now its clear that the model itself is in
crisis.
In its shocking report, Subprime Opportunity, the US Educational Trust
has documented what appears to be a story of massive educational failure.
The report shows that it costs more than twice as much to enrol at a for-
proft college as it does to in a public institution. Federal loans do not cover
these costs, so students are saddled with private debt, arranged for them
by the colleges with the banks at high levels of interest. 46% of students at
for-proft colleges had to take out such private loans, compared with 14%
at public institutions. Median debt at graduation for such students is more
than $30,000, compared with just under $8000 at public institutions.
What they get for taking on this debt is often
nothing at all.
Only 22% of students at for-proft colleges ever graduate from a four
year course, compared with 55% at public institutions. As Department of
Education fgures published in September this year showed, the rate of
loan default among those who do complete, is rising. 15% of the students
who do graduate default on their loans, usually through unemployment,
within two years of completing and 20% default within three years.
For years, the US press has run a depressing series of stories of individual
misery and litigation against these companies. Now, with the US taxpayer
pouring more than $24 billion into the for-proft companies pockets,
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the government has fnally been forced to step in. The last year has seen
an intense political battle. Ranged on one side has been a coalition of
unions, community organisations, educational charities and Democrat
politicians - on the other, the powerful for-proft lobbyists with their
generally Republican advocates. The Obama administration has struggled
to balance the need to more closely regulate the industry against its fear
of triggering the collapse of big companies enrolling tens and hundreds of
thousands of students. As the stunning Frontline documentary College
Inc, points out, the for-proft companies, like the banks, have become too
big to fail.
Many consider that the Obama administration
missed a historic opportunity when it watered
down it planned regulations aimed at tightening
up for-profts access to federal loans. Nonetheless, the administrations
new regulations are causing problems. Kaplans falling stock price, for
example, has been attributed directly to the new regulations, while all the
companies are having to spend money adjusting their operations. Perhaps
this is another reason why overseas expansion looks attractive.
Yet here, in spite of political encouragement from the Coalition
government, extensive lobbying and a burgeoning PR operation, the for-
proft companies are not having it all their way.
Last year, UCU launched a campaign to highlight
and lobby against this threat Education is not for
Proft.
The aim of our campaign is simple: to do whatever we can to prevent
the growth of the for-proft industry as in the USA, in the interests of
staff, students and taxpayers alike. Clearly, this is no easy time at a time
when the government is so committed to opening up public services to
privatisation and fnancialisation. Yet as weve also seen, the Coalition has
weak points and is not immune to retreats and compromises.
UCU has been at the forefront of work to build a coalition of opposition
to for-profts within the HE sector. Our poll of professors revealed that
85% of those responding thought that private companies would damage
the UKs global reputation for HE. Universities have begun to publicly
recognise the threat. The most strident opponents have been the Vice
Chancellors of Salford University and University of East London, but even
Universities UK director Nicola Dandridge warned that private providers
could cherry pick the most lucrative courses, making it unsustainable for
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universities to run less lucrative but more socially valuable ones. And as
a recent Observer article demonstrated, HEFCE, now the governments
lead regulator, shares some of these concerns.
Weve also worked to raise the profle of the issue in the wider public,
uncovering the connections between private companies in the UK and
their US owners, highlighting their records and exposing their lobbying
agenda. Increasingly, were seeing success. Recent months have seen a
steady stream of stories on the antics of the for-proft industry. Highlights
have included an Observer article that revealed HEFCEs warnings about
the risks posed by for-proft universities, and a Daily Mirror expose of
Ministerial meetings with US companies.
Now we are pushing to give political expression to this growing opposition.
UCU has worked closely with Labour MP Paul Blomfeld, including
promoting his campaign around Early Day Motion 1999 which warns
of the dangers of for-proft universities. At the time of going to press,
131 MPs had signed this including 22 Liberal Democrats, more than
rebelled over tuition fees. In November, UCU is also hosting a screening
of PBSs documentary College Inc. in Parliament and as the legislation
approaches, we will be escalating our campaign further.
Its at least arguable that weve already had an effect on the White Paper.
The admission that new providers will need more regulation and should
be treated as higher risk opens up an opportunity for us to insist that for-
profts are a special case, not just high risk, but toxic. We will be arguing
that there can be no fast tracks to university title or degree awarding
powers and there must be more and closer regulation. Indeed, we would
argue, they should have no access to public subsidies at all.
The stakes are high. On such seemingly marginal issues in the legislation
will turn the fate of the for-proft industry in the UK. But if we are to have a
chance, we will need members to show the same campaigning energy they
have demonstrated hitherto. More than this, we need to spread the word
and widen the campaign. You can help by raising the issue in your branch
or your professional associations now. We have a chance to prevent the
growth of this industry in what would appear to be the least opportune
circumstances imaginable. In doing so, we would be sparing tens of
thousands of students the misery suffered by young people in the US. That
would be quite an achievement.
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
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ONLINE PAGE 37 TWO
by Ian Searle
In defence of
public libraries
The mass closure of public libraries in some areas of
Britain will damage most sorts of learning but the
worst hit will be the sort of learning that people do
because they want to do it, not because they need
it for their career.
These are the same people who are being hit by the decline of adult
education, and the increasing marginalisation of all adult education which
is not designed to equip you for work. Publicly funded adult education
has in recent years suffered from both lack of money, and the increasingly
common view that adult learning should be directed primarily towards
training. Even the writers of the report on the admirable European LARA
Project A Response to Ageing admit, There is no consistency in funding
mechanisms for formal and non-formal adult education. This inevitably
leads to the prioritising of work likely to generate income.
Learning for pleasure, for personal development, is in danger of
extinction. In particular, a growing number of older people fnd
Ian Searle is
chairman of the
University of the
Third Age.
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themselves priced out of education. Yet a great many older people want
to continue learning, for a variety of reasons. Some of them may wish to
return to employment, but many do not. Its for the second category that
the University of the Third Age was founded 29 years ago. U3A is a place
where people who no longer do paid work full time are learning, not to
earn qualifcations, or certifcates, but for the pleasure it gives them.
And many of these rely on a nearby library, or a mobile library, that will
not be there next year. Many U3A interest groups depend on local libraries
for research materials, and more than 30 U3As have told us that they are
involved in campaigns to save their local libraries. Though its members
need no direct help, they do require a certain level of infrastructure, and
chief among that is a proper public library service. For many U3A groups,
the library is the frst port of call for learning materials.
The present round of deep cuts is hitting an already damaged library
service. Local authorities under pressure have been cutting their libraries
for years. You can see why libraries become a target in straitened times.
They look like a soft target. Library cuts wont make hospital waiting lists
longer, nor deprive children of an education.
Or wont they?
In some parts of the country, at exam time, students and schoolchildren
have to get to the library well before it opens and queue if they want a desk.
Children are turned away every day because there is no room. As to health,
we know that learning in your third age is good for both the brain and the
body, helping to stave off the fourth age of dependence. And library cuts
make third age learning much harder. The humble public library may be
one of those things that we dont value enough until we wake up and fnd
we havent got it any more.
So libraries will be missed by all sections of the population, but especially
by older, retired people, many of whom want to read and study all the
things they have not had time for before. That older people have an
appetite for learning new things is now beyond doubt. The University of
the Third Age has grown every year of its 29 years, and now has more than
270,000+ members in more than 800 local U3As.
Heres an example of the sort of second chance education for which were
best known, and which will be damaged by library closures and by the
increasing emphasis on vocational learning.
Estelle Bullough wanted to go to university when she was young, and
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study languages. But her mother died when she was 15, and the family
circumstances didnt allow it she left school at 17. She worked in a bank,
then part time in a clothing retail company after having children. Then
at last, nearly forty years later, she took up languages again, through the
U3A.
She joined Bradford U3A, and its been part of her life for 20 years. In that
time she has shown the real talent for languages which she always knew
she had, learning German, French, Spanish and Italian. She also became
the secretary of the Bradford U3A, and started learning in two other
groups there philosophy, and gardening. She has travelled a lot, so that
she can use her languages.
For a while, in the 1990s, the U3A nationally had a network of translators
and interpreters who gave their services to non-proft making bodies,
which was in a position to offer more than 100 linguists covering 26
languages. Estelle was one of its frst recruits. One of her jobs was to
translate material about the British U3A into German, for use by groups of
older people in Germany.
For the same reasons as Estelle, my father would have loved the U3A, if it
had existed in his day. He was born in 1899 and left school at 14, working
at a series of low-paid jobs, including that of carter, a mine worker above
ground, a labourer, an unskilled ftter who looked after a large diesel
engine at a local lime kilns and chalk pit in Sussex, and he fnished as a saw
doctor.
He was a Methodist lay preacher for 25 years. He took a lively interest in
the local primary school of which he was a governor, and he served on the
parish council. He was also a staunch trade unionist. He was entirely self-
taught and, in later years, I realized he was a very intelligent man.
He died recognised only by his few Methodist friends. His workmates
and the other inhabitants of the village where he lived viewed him as
a bit strange. There was something in him which made him search for
knowledge and read a great deal.
These are the sort of people we exist for. And people like that require
a freewheeling but democratic organisation, which they control and
from which they can take whatever they wish. They dont want a third
age organisation controlled by well-meaning second agers, and the
U3A and the National Pensioners Convention are the only two older
peoples organisations in the country which are run in that democratic
way: by third agers, for third agers. Im the elected national chair, and
Im responsible to a 20-strong national executive and an Annual General
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Meeting of representatives from U3As throughout the land. The U3A
has never seen any reason why the principle of democratic accountability
should cease to apply when you retire.
The U3A doesnt have a political view. We dont see it as our job to allocate
blame for the economic crisis, or to prescribe economic solutions. But
we do see it as our duty to speak out against proposals which will damage
second chance learning and third age learning. Decimating the public
library service is as clear an example of such a proposal as I can think of.
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
There are 271,217
U3A members
in 811 local U3As
throughout the
country.
Several of these
U3As have well-
established links with
their local university.
University teachers
approaching
retirement who
want to nd their
local U3A, or who
want to make links
between their
institution and the
U3A, or who want
an information pack,
including a DVD
about U3A activities,
should go to the
website, www.U3A.
org.uk or telephone
the national oce,
020 8466 6139, or
write to national.
oce@U3A.org.uk
or to Third Age Trust,
The Old Municipal
Buildings, 19 East
Street, Bromley, BR1
1QE.
There is likely to be a
U3A near you, but if
there is not, the U3A
would be delighted
to help you start one.
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Des Freedman
The assault on
universities:
a manifesto for
resistance
Following a huge march demanding that the
government provides the cash for higher education,
one writer commented that the students protests
have managed to awaken the consciousness of
vast sectors of the population about the need for a
profound change in the country. What even a few
months was considered impossible is now frmly on
the agenda.
So said Latin American journalist Roberto Navarrete refecting on the
huge signifcance of the mass demonstrations and occupations sweeping
Chile this summer. Faced with a higher education system 84 per cent of
which is funded by students and their families, whole swathes of Chilean
societyfrom schoolkids to trade unionists have taken to the streets
to demand that the state puts up corporate tax rates to guarantee free
education.
Des Freedman
teaches in the
Department
of Media and
Communications
at Goldsmiths,
University of
London and is
secretary of the
UCU branch there.
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All the signs are that theyre winning given that the increasingly unpopular
government of Sebastin Piera has already offered to cut interest rates on
student loans and to hike up student grants.
Of course, Chile must seem a long way away from those of us working
in British colleges and universities who are starting new terms and
where its enough just to keep going. Faced with increased class sizes,
fewer resources, more administration, stringent targets, heightened
insecurity (let alone frozen salaries and insecure pensions), there is an
understandable tendency to feel more than a little defensive and to focus
our activities on mainly local battles.
But we know, of course, that these domestic concerns are tied to a
much bigger agenda which, in the context of universities, involves the
governments determination radically to restructure the whole idea of
higher education. The 80 per cent cut in teaching budgets, the wholescale
attack on arts and humanities, the trebling of fees, and the outsourcing of
courses to private providers signals the determination of the Coalition to
force market logic into the provision of a university education. Its no
exaggeration to say that we are facing a serious assault on our universities.
Many of the proposals that were eventually bundled into Julys white
paper more freedom for the private sector, more customer satisfaction
surveys, more micro-management of fees and grants at the same time
as allowing courses (and even institutions) to close in an allegedly self-
regulating market have been extensively analysed in places like the LRB,
this very magazine and via the UCUs Campaigns team.
Yet we also need to remind ourselves what we are
struggling for and not simply what we are opposed to.
As we struggle against redundancies, course closures and resource cuts, we
also need to think about what kind of institutions we want our universities
to be in the frst place: competitors for the provision of employer-led
skills, depositories for the cash of the sons and daughters of international
dictators, adjuncts of corporate research, fnishing schools for the rich? Or
places that deliver independent, critical and relevant knowledge that has
been demonstrated again and again to beneft not just individual students
but society as a whole?
Were all stronger if we link our local disputes to wider movements against
the neoliberal reforms that are trying to turn our universities and colleges
into corporate beasts that produce commodities more than students and
that focus on effciency more than knowledge.
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That is why a group of us have produced a manifesto for higher
education with demands placed both on government and universities
themselves.
It focuses on issues of employment and equality, governance and
democracy, investment and internationalism. It calls, for example, on the
government to increase the proportion of public expenditure devoted to
higher education to at least the EU average by raising corporation tax and
increasing the top level of personal income tax. It also calls for the salaries
of vice-chancellors to be capped, for research ethics committees to have
more teeth when it comes to projects concerning the arms and nuclear
industries, and for institutions not to accept donations from individuals
or regimes that refuse to sign up to a statement guaranteeing academic
freedom in the host country.
Like all manifestos, it makes ambitious demands that will be extremely
tough to achieve. But the point of a manifesto is to raise our expectations,
to generalise our experiences and to help draw us out of a defensive
mindset into one which believes that both resistance and change is
possible. The manifesto has been signed by nearly 1000 academics,
support staff and researchers both in the UK and abroad. It attempts to
remind us that, in challenging the governments narrow and destructive
attack on higher education, we need to maintain a broad vision of what it
is about universities that motivated us to work in them in the frst place
and why a higher education system dominated by market values will be a
disaster for everyone.
We have also published an edited collection of essays, The Assault on
Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance (Pluto Press) that provides a
broader context for the manifesto demands. The book
tackles a range of issues from assessing the impact of
marketisation, managerialism and privatisation to
identifying new possibilities for funding, conceptualising
and defending higher education. Its meant to be, as John
Pilger describes it, a call to arms and, given the scale
of the attack on our jobs, conditions and the very soul
of the university, thats what we need more than ever.
And remember, you never know what, even a few months was considered
impossible, might be frmly back on the agenda.
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
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ONLINE TWO PAGE 44
Steve Cushion examines the
current moral panic around
pensions and argues that
unions must defend this
deferred pay.
The politics
of pensions
Crisis? What crisis?
Prophets of doom in the government and their supporters in the press
are currently issuing dire warnings that there is a crisis in the provision
of pensions because we are all living longer. This, we are told, can
only be resolved if pensionable age is raised, beneft levels curbed and
contributions from employees are increased. Before considering our
response to these threats, it is worth considering if there really is a crisis.
The recently published Green Paper states that life expectancy is 89 for
men and 90 for women. This is strange because the Offce for National
Statistics gives life expectancy at state pension age, the important fgure
when calculating how much the provision of pensions will cost, as 82.4
for men and 85 for women and that it is levelling off. This last point
is important, as it is often implied that life expectancy is constantly
increasing and will continue to do so at the same rate. However, in 2009,
pensioners represented 19% of total population, while it is predicted
that by 2050 they will represent 21%. Hardly a change that warrants
the current scaremongering. In fact, most of the increased average life
expectancy that we have seen in the last hundred years is due to a dramatic
fall in the infant mortality, which dragged the average fgure down in
previous centuries. This warns us to be very suspicious of statistics which,
despite their air of scientifc objectivity, can be selectively used to prove
Steve Cushion
Branch Secretary,
UCU London
Retired Members
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the writers point. As Mark Twain commented, there are three kinds of
lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.
There is considerable evidence, however, which links life expectancy to
income. If they cut the pension, they will save money as many of us will
then die earlier. We already have 2.5million pensioners whose income is
below the poverty line, defned as 60% of average earnings, currently 178
before housing costs. Any deterioration in the basic state pension would
add many more to that fgure, as already 63% of pensioner households
gain the majority of income from the state pension and other benefts.
State Pension
The existing basic state pension was set up in 1948 as part of the post war
welfare reforms. It is funded by means of a National Insurance Fund. It
was intended to be self funding, based on contributions of employees
and employers. There are two ways in which pension provision can be
organised, pre-funded and pay-as-you-go. Pre-funded schemes are started
with a fund, which is increased by contributions and which generates
investment income. Pay-as-you-go schemes operate such that the
contributions of the economically active are more or less immediately paid
out in pension benefts to the retired. All of the national schemes set up
after the Second World War are pay-as-you-go, probably inevitably given
the problems of starting them from scratch in economically diffcult times.
There was also strong pressure from the fnancial services industry who
were afraid that a fully-funded scheme would represent competition and
loss of business.
Right-wing ideologues associated with the banks and insurance
companies mounted a campaign against any attempt to use the surplus in
the National Insurance Fund for economic intervention in housing or job
creation, condemning this possibility as state socialism if only. Such
interventions from the fnancial services industry and its propagandists
are a constant feature of the discussion of pensions. This is only to be
expected, but what is unfortunate for the majority of us is their success
in infuencing policy. At the last valuation the National Insurance Fund
was 41 billion in surplus, hardly a picture of a system in terminal crisis.
This surplus, while it is reserved for its original intended purpose, is used
to offset the governments borrowing requirement, and neither serves
a useful economic purpose such as promoting industrialisation and job
creation, nor does it grow through investment. Yet another case of the
workers money used by the state to reduce its debts and thereby lower
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taxes on the rich.
The Thatcher government started many processes that shifted the balance
of national income from the poor to the rich, but her pension reforms have
gone largely unnoticed. The most important of these from our point of
view was the to change the indexation mechanism. Previously, pension
increases were linked to the annual increase to wages or prices, whichever
was the greater. Since 1980, pensions have been index linked to the
retail price index (RPI) and, had this change not been made, the current
102 per week would be 165, still pathetic, but at least approaching the
poverty level. By European standards, the British basic state pension
is indeed pathetic, being a mere 30% of average earnings, compared to
the EU average of 60%. Any suggestion that there is not enough money
in the economy to guarantee all older citizens a reasonable standard of
living is soon dispelled by examining the pension arrangements of the
senior executives of the banks and fnance houses. These make shocking
headlines but are soon forgotten as the press prefers to concern itself
with the minor peccadilloes of footballers and other celebrities. A truly
investigative press would be less concerned with who is in bed with whom
and more interested in who has got their already rich fngers in the public
purse.
British employers social contributions are the worst in Europe and
the trade union response to this, rather than campaigning for a truly
progressive taxation system that makes the rich pay at a level they can
afford, has been to promote occupational pension schemes that cover the
workers in single industries or individual companies.
Occupational pensions
Funded schemes are the more common form of occupational pension
and represent a business opportunity for the banks and insurance
companies, because they provide a constant stream of investment capital
for big business with captive investors. There is an accountability defcit,
with employees ownership rights being usurped by the sponsoring
management and their fund managers, who have more in common in
both attitude and income with bankers than they do with the workers
whose interests they are supposed to represent. Even those trade union
representatives on boards of trustees fnd themselves with little or no
infuence on the day to day running of the scheme.
Occupational pension schemes were frequently a result of trade union
action, for example the frst such pension fund in the USA was set up
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following the 1946 United Mine Workers national strike. Pensions are
therefore best seen as a form of deferred wages. They take two forms,
either defned beneft schemes, from which benefts are paid according
to a calculation based on the salary and the years of service of the retiring
worker, or else defned contribution (also called money purchase)
schemes, in which the pensioner accumulates a pot that is used to buy
an annuity from which the benefts are paid. In the former case, the risk
is taken by the sponsoring employer, in the latter the risk rests with the
employee as the level of beneft is based upon circumstances such as stock
market prices over which they have no control. Clearly the defned beneft
approach is infnitely preferable from the employees point of view, which
is why, in recent years, private employers have closed nearly 90% of such
schemes or converted them to defned contribution, claiming that they
cannot afford their contributions in times of economic diffculties. There
is a lot of talk of black holes in pension funds, completely ignoring the
practice of taking pension holidays in previously more proftable times
or fnancing redundancies out of the pension fund. Between 1987 and
2001, British employers took pension holidays of 18.5 billion, which with
proper investment would have done much to prevent the appearance of
so-called black holes.
The majority of the remaining defned beneft schemes are now in the
public sector, although privatisation and contracting-out has signifcantly
reduced the number of fnal salary occupational pensions (or indeed any
other kind). This has led to a government sponsored attack on public
sector pensions with their supporters in the press headlining stories of
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the Fat cat pensions of a few over-paid municipal chief executives and
overlooking the fact that the average public sector pension was 68/
week in 2006-7, as the wages of the majority of public sector workers are
scandalously low. Let us look at one such public sector schemes to give us
an idea of how the approach works in practice.
The Transport for London pension scheme is fully funded and has a large
portfolio of capital investment. It has been the subject of considerable
trade union activity, with a campaign in the late 1980s securing retirement
at 60, equal treatment for same sex partners and other improvements.
The fund has also been subject to a cycle of surplus and defcit but even
in the current strained economic atmosphere, last years contributions
exceeded beneft payment by 55m and, when investment income is taken
into account, the was a net increase of 1,268,856,000. Nevertheless, the
actuarial report, done in 2009 at the bottom of the economic cycle, turns
this surplus into a defcit of 107 million. This is because it is based on the
proposition that there should be enough in the fund to buy annuities from
an insurance company to fulfl all beneft obligations should the fund be
wound up tomorrow.
1
We shall see when considering the private pension
industry that this is a particularly absurd measure of fnancial stability.
Private pension schemes
Private pension funds represent a valuable source of business for the
fnancial services industry, but represent a particularly poor return for the
investor. Heavy expenses for marketing, administration, collection and
individual tailoring result in heavy charges, as of course does the proft
made by the banking or insurance institution managing the funds. The
BBC programme Panorama found that some some such as HSBC take up
to 80% of money deposited in charges.
2
A charge of 1% per annum may not
seem much, but over 40 years would take 20% of your pot and 2%, 3% and
even 4% charges are not uncommon. The Workplace Income Commission
report in August this year, chaired by Lord McFall, made it clear that
private pension schemes were poor value for money and that the scale
of management charges were a major reason for the bad returns. If you
take management fees down from 2% to 1% you could be talking about an
increase in pension pot of 50%.
3
The charges levied by the fnancial services industry for administering
private pensions adds up to a vast operation of skimming off the top.
Many teachers who have contributed to the Additional Voluntary
Contributions scheme recommended by the TPS have come to the
1
http://www.t.gov.
uk/microsites/pensions/
documents.asp
2
BBC, Panorama
(4 August 2010)
3
http://wricommission.
org.uk/wric/
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conclusion that it would have been better advised to have put their money
under the bed.
The exorbitant charges levied by the private pension sector are not
compensated for by fnancial security. The mis-selling scandal of the 80s
resulted in 1.5 million people being conned into taking a worse option,
while those who invested in Equitable Life lost a considerable part of
their life savings. It is worth noting in passing that the government was
prepared to spend billions of pounds of tax-payers money to save the city
banks, but did not compensate those small investors who lost much of
their savings at Equitable Life.
There has been a trend to fnancialisation of public schemes, with the
increasing involvement of fnancial services industry. This is a form of
privatisation that is costly and ineffcient, but which generates funds for
the banks while undercutting social solidarity. The fnance industry is
lobbying to remove the competition from public pension funds and we see,
for example, that the Teachers Pension Scheme is run by the investment
house Capita, when it would be perfectly possible to run it as part of the
education ministry, rather as the Transport for London scheme is run in-
house by the Mayors Offce with considerably greater effciency.
Private pension funds have become integral to global capitalism. Half
of Britains stocks and shares are owned by pension funds which are
administered according to the ethos of the City of London: short termism,
lack of interest in manufacturing industry and looking for a quick proft
without investing for future development. In every respect they are part of
the problem, rather than providing a solution to the question of fnancing
old age.
Green Paper
So, why are they attacking our pensions? The simple answer is that they
want to solve the banking crisis at the expense of pensioners and working
people and that the recently published green paper on pensions is part of
a process which will signifcantly transfer the balance of national wealth
from labour to capital.
This green paper introduces the initially attractive idea of a single pension,
but at a signifcantly lower rate than would be required to raise the
majority of pensioners out of poverty. The end of contracting out (the
system which allows lower national insurance contributions for employers
with occupational pension schemes) threatens to kill the remaining
private sector pension schemes and place a further strain on public sector
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schemes. The end of the state second
pension will also have worsening
effect on remaining defned beneft
pensions. The state second pension
was targeted at those who were not
in good occupational schemes, while
those employers with adequate
pension schemes could contract
out of contributions for of this
state second pension. This meant
that both employer and employee
pay reduced National Insurance
contributions. Those in both private
and public sector occupational
pension schemes will incur higher rates of National Insurance
contributions in future. The green paper envisages a 3.4% increase in NI
contributions for employers and 1.4% for employees. This will be the death
knell for yet more private sector defned beneft schemes.
If this aspect of the proposed changes has gone largely unnoticed, the
change in the basis for indexation of benefts from the Retail Price
Index (RPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been more widely
commented and is clearly a fraudulent recalculation of the rate of infation
to the government and employers advantage. This year alone it has
resulted in an increase of 3.1% compared to the 4.6% it would have been if
the RPI indexation had been maintained. Each succeeding year, the lower
percentage will be calculated on an already lower base, in a form of reverse
compound interest.
The real reason behind of the change in infation indexation is clearly
demonstrated by the case of British Telecom. Investors could beneft from
a 100bn windfall over the next 15 years following a government switch to
a lower measure of pensions infation that has given BT a 4bn plus boost
to its fnances . . . a ruling that allows it to link pension payouts to the lower
CPI measure of infation.
4
Again, a government move to shift the balance
of national income away from labour towards capital. All of this will, of
course, be aggravated by the raising of the the age of entitlement for the
basic state pension to 68. Wait longer for less while paying more.
4
Guardian (13 May 2011)
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Teachers Pensions
How will this affect the pensions that lecturers and academic related staff
can expect to receive? There are two schemes covering the employment
feld in which the UCU organises, the Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS),
covering Further Education and post-1992 universities, as well as school
teachers, while the University Superannuation Scheme (USS) covers the
pre-1992 university sector.
The Teachers Pension Scheme is run on a pay-as-you-go basis. In 2008
it had a 400m surplus, in 2009 a 200m defcit and in 2010 a 100m
surplus. This would seem to indicate that the scheme is functioning
quite nicely and makes one wonder what the fuss is about. The scheme
undergoes a periodic actuarial evaluation and, as a result of the last one
in 2007, the trade unions agreed to changes that included an increase in
contribution and the capping of the employers contribution, with changes
to benefts. The fact that the next legitimate and agreed evaluation is
soon due accounts for the unseemly haste with which the government
is attempting to raise employee contributions from 6.4% to 9.5% and
increase the retirement age from 60 to 65.
5
If they wait until the fgures
are published, it looks extremely likely that this will not indicate a problem
severe enough to warrant such a draconian assault. In hindsight, the trade
unions probably gave in too easily in 2007 and, as the old proverb goes,
the blackmailer always comes back for more. However, the response to
the current attack has been considerably more robust with the teacher
trade unions taking united strike action for the frst time, recognising that
the increase in contributions would just be a windfall for the exchequer.
As Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and Colleges Union, said
recently: Any increase in contributions from members will not aid their
retirement; they will raise funds for the Treasury. This is simply a tax on
public sector workers.
While the assault on the TPS can be seen as a simple cost cutting exercise
by a government intent on reducing its budget defcit at the expense of
working people, the proposed changes to the USS look more like an asset
stripping operation. The employers are demanding a reduction in benefts
claiming that pressures on the fund make this inevitable. The pressures
they cite are increased longevity, larger salary increases than expected
and lower investment returns leading to a possible funding defcit.
The scheme management claim that rates of longevity will continue to
improve, without saying by how much. We noted above that this increased
life expectancy is levelling off for the general population and there is no
5
Teachers Pension Scheme
(England and Wales),
Resource Accounts 2009-10
(31 March 2010)
www.ocial-documents.
gov.uk/document/hc1011/
hc02/0257/0257.pdf
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reason to believe that university staff will not follow the general pattern so,
while the matter needs to be addressed, it should not be seen as the time
bomb the scare mongers would have us believe. The argument that salary
increases in the sector have been signifcantly greater than in the past will
come as a surprise to most academics, who have watched their salaries
struggle to keep pace with infation. In any case, as contributions are a
percentage of salary, higher salaries would mean greater contributions, so
what is the problem?
6
There is clearly no problem with the funds existing
fnancial position.
The Report and Accounts show that contribution income has exceeded
beneft payment for the last fve years by an average of 200 million pounds
a year. This means that the entire investment income, averaging 800
million pounds a year, increases the investment value of the fund and
contributes to what is a very healthy surplus. It is true that there were
substantial losses in investment value during the years 2008 and 2009,
but the value of the fund never went below 200 billion pounds and has now
recovered to be currently worth 30,131, 000, 000. While on the subject
of the funds accounts, it is worth noticing that the administration costs
(excluding investment management costs) have risen from 11.8 million
to 16.9 million pounds, an annual increase of nearly 10%; would that
teachers salaries had kept pace with this rate of increase. Examining these
fgures indicates that there may be some argument for a minor adjustment
in contributions to account for the slightly longer life expectancy of
pensioners, but the scale of the reductions in beneft proposed is out of all
proportion to this. The USS is, on their own fgures, a healthy and wealthy
pension fund.
7
The most dangerous of the management proposals for beneft changes is
to move new entrants from a fnal salary arrangement to a career average
revalued earnings. A career average scheme matches each years beneft
accrual to earnings in each year rather than the fnal years earnings. The
earnings fgure will be uprated in line with prices rather than the actual
increase in earnings. This is particularly detrimental to workers in a sector
which has a salary scale based on annual increments. If this were not bad
enough, the prices index used for indexation will not be the Retail Price
Index (RPI) but the lower Consumer Price Index (CPI). Existing members
will retain fnal salary benefts, albeit with some beneft reductions, but
the fact that new members will have their benefts determined on a career
average basis introduces a dangerous division and vastly reduces the
6
USS, Dealing with the funding
challenges (2011)
www.uss.co.uk/SchemeGuide/
FinalSalaryBenetssection/
publicationsandpresentations/
memberreports/Pages/
default.aspx
7
USS, Report and Accounts
(2011)
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potential for united resistance when the management came back for their
next attack, as they surely will. The whole concept of pensions is based on
intergenerational solidarity, a principal worth defending at all costs.
The alternative answer to any fnancial diffculties which may exist in the
USS fnances, or indeed those of any other scheme, is clearly spelled out in
their own documentation: These pressures could be addressed simply by
increasing the employer contribution rate . . ..
The Way Forward
In the end, while it is important to understand the fnancial mechanism
by which these different schemes operate, this should not be seen as the
determining factor. Workers or pensioners have no control over the way
the money is invested, they should take no responsibility for the outcome,
which is why trade unions support the defned beneft approach.
Starting from the basis that pensions are deferred wages, an essential part
of our remuneration that is paid out of contributions by employers and
employees, it becomes an issue of naked class interest, a question of what
proportion does each class pay. We need to insist that there be no cuts
in beneft, no increase in workers contribution, with benefts indexed to
prices or wages, whichever is the higher, and the defence of the RPI as the
basic measure of price infation, not the CPI. To achieve this, we need to
demand compulsory employer contribution to a second pension. Private
employers, even the honest ones who do not pillage the pension fund as
did Enron and Maxwell, can go out of business, so it would be better to
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have a multi-employer scheme or schemes, guaranteed by the state, to
which employers are compelled to contribute, but over which they have
limited control. Such a system works well in France and Germany. There
is clearly the need for a buffer for times of less employment but, given the
cyclical nature of capitalist economy, this should not be a problem. In this
context, we should be demanding the retention of, or return to defned
beneft schemes, not depending on the ups and downs of the stock market
and the fnancial ability, or lack of it, of fund managers over whom we have
no control.
N
Further Reading Blackburn, Robin, Banking on Death, or Investing in
Life: the history and future of pensions, London: Verso, 2003
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
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ONLINE PAGE 55 TWO
by Patricia Hulme and Dan Arthur
The back ofce
bites back!
The term back ofce was frst bandied about by
government ministers.
It is easy to visualise it as fat cat managers doing nothing and taking
salaries away from front line staff. From the rhetoric that we constantly
hear there is an argument that cuts need to be made and that front line
services will not be affected if savings are made in the back offce. So if
those cuts are done who will do the back offce roles? Probably front line
staff. Academic Related (AR) staff have had enough and it is up to UCU
and its AR Staff Committee to ensure that our (back offce) members are
defended against creeping cuts, outsourcing and privatisation. We need
to ensure in no uncertain terms the professionalism and skills of our AR
colleagues are preserved.
AR staff are a major part of the academic team. We are the highly
educated, highly skilled professionals working tirelessly in universities
and colleges. We work behind the scenes to ensure that students have
a place, we organise accommodation, we are responsible for their
computing facilities, we organise the library access, we ensure that the
correct number of credits are done, we facilitate the exams process,
we ensure marks are accurate and we organise graduation and ensure
students leave with their degree. This does not happen just by chance,
many hours of hard work go on behind the scenes in the back offce by AR
staff. We are responsible for student support, estates management, grant
management, fnances, strategy and planning. Academic Related staff are
in the forefront of academic life.
In the rush for savings, we are fnding that universities and colleges are
rushing to restructure their departments/schools/faculties. AR staff fnd
themselves in the invidious position of having to make staff redundant
or face redundancy themselves. The ills of outsourcing are well-known
Patricia Hulme
works at
Nottingham
University and is
the Chair of UCUs
Academic Related
(AR) Committee.
Dan Arthur
works at the
London School of
Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine
and is Vice Chair of
the AR Committee.
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but restructuring is another tool which will mean only one thing
redundancies/deskilling/de-professionalisation. As case-workers, we
know that restructuring has led to layers of highly professional, highly
skilled AR staff facing redundancy. It is the more senior staff who can
fnd themselves at risk of redundancy or their roles are redefned, salaries
reduced and so on.
Academic Related staf in every institution must be
preparing to defend jobs now.
Just losing a few jobs here are there is the start of the rot. Its really just a
practise run for phase two.
The Academic Related title is not used nearly enough in many institutions
any more, and along with this our job titles have changed. For example,
Librarians are Learning Resource Technicians, Administrators and
Computing Offcers are now Information Services staff. We must start by
fnding these people, ensuring they know that UCU is the trade union for
them. If they are not part of a union then they are unlikely to know that the
charade that is modern human resource management can be challenged
- that it must be challenged. The service reviews and consultations
are meaningless and the answer is usually decided in advance. That
increasingly keeping your head down and going along means everything
will be alright is folly. Sticking your head in the sand and hoping its all
going to go away just wont work. The only way to actually use these
reviews and consultations is to be saying the same thing, with one voice,
again and again, where ever and whenever anyone will stop to listen.
All UCU members need to be aware of how AR staff add value to the
UCUs AR Sta Committee at work
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academic team. How knowledge and experience of an institution improves
our working lives and the holy grail (or should that be the golden grail
at 2012 prices) that is the student experience. In the past UCU has often
noted that academic related staff must be protected, because once they
have been de-skilled, de-professionalised/ outsourced/restructured they
will be coming for teaching and learning next. As academic related staff we
have already seen cleaning, catering and works departments outsourced
and restructured. We know that we are next, unless we fght to defend
ourselves.
N
See also the UCU webpages for more on this and on academic related
matters: http://bit.ly/l7s7ZF
^
UC contributors welcome the chance to discuss their work. Responses to this
article should be sent to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk

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TWO PAGE 58 ONLINE PAGE 58 TWO ONLINE

Registration is now open for the Annual
Equality Conferences. The conferences are
an excellent opportunity to meet other
UCU members, discuss key issues and help
formulate policy for UCU on each of the
equality strands.
The four Equality Standing Committees
will also be elected at the conferences.
The conferences are free of charge and
reasonable travel expenses will be met.
You can register online by following the
links opposite. In accordance with Rules,
Branches and LAs will be able to submit
nominations and motions for each of the
equality standing committees.Nomination
and motion forms are also available
online here: www.ucu.org.uk/index.
cfm?articleid=1868 or can be requested
from eqadmin@ucu.org.uk.
There will be guest speakers at the events
(tbc), and we would like to encourage
as many of the membership as possible
to come and be a part of the day, as we
continue to campaign for and prioritise
equality. A yer has been produced that
can be printed out and distributed which
you can download from www.ucu.org.uk/
equality
www.ucu.org.uk

Women Members Conference

Friday 4 November 2011
https://asp.artegis.com/servlet/asm/Login
Login: UCUEQUALITY
Password: WMC2011

LGBT Members Conference

Saturday 5 November 2011
https://asp.artegis.com/servlet/asm/Login
Login: UCUEQUALITY
Password: LGBTMC2011

Black Members Conference

Friday 11 November 2011
https://asp.artegis.com/servlet/asm/Login
Login: UCUEQUALITY
Password BMC2011

Disabled Members Conference

Friday 25 November 2011
https://asp.artegis.com/servlet/asm/Login
Login: UCUEQUALITY
Password: DMC2011
(Login and password are both case
sensitive)

Annual Equality
Conferences 2011
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TWO ONLINE PAGE 59
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TWO
UCU General Secretary,
Trustee, Ofcer and
National Executive
Committee (NEC)
Elections 2012
call for nominations
Nominations are sought for a Vice-President from the Further Education sector (going
on to become President of UCU), for NEC members, for three trustees, and for the
position of General Secretary. Nominations open on Friday 14 October 2011.
There are over 30 NEC seats to which nominations are sought. Positions include HE
and FE seats elected on a UK-wide basis, seats specic to London and the East, the
North East, the North West (a casual vacancy), Northern Ireland and Wales, plus seats
for representatives of women members and sta on casualised contracts. NEC seats
are ordinarily for a term of two years; this years call also includes ve shorter terms.
Terms of oce begin at the close of UCUs Congress on 10 June 2012.
The trustee and General Secretary positions are for a term of ve years.
The deadline for the receipt of all nominations including all support required for
nominations is 17:00 on Wednesday 23 November 2011. Candidates standing
in contested elections will be asked to provide election addresses by 17:00 on 7
December 2011. Ballots take place in February 2012.
Full information, including full text of the calling notice listing all positions, and
nomination forms, can be found on UCUs website at http://www.ucu.org.
uk/elections Alternatively, to be sent information in hard copy, or for further
information about these elections, contact Kay Metcalfe at UCUs head oce
kmetcalfe@ucu.org.uk, 020 7756 2551.
Editor: Matt Waddup Send contributions to mwaddup@ucu.org.uk
Design and production: John Finn
UCU, Carlow Street, London NW1 7LH
www.ucu.org.uk
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